After graduating from high school in 1993, he took broadcasting courses in college, but he quickly became bored and asked his teacher when they would get more involved with the production side of broadcasting. His teacher told him that he wouldn’t touch a camera until his senior year. When Johnson asked why he was told that the slow process was to “weed out those not cut out for television”. The future NATAS LGL Emmy® Award-Winning Director was disheartened and eventually counted among those not cut out for television when he dropped out of college and began looking for opportunities to get hands-on experience in the industry.
He began volunteering at a public access television station in Lansing, MI, operating TV cameras for a local show and also producing his own content. In 1995, he moved to Tulsa, OK to intern with Stephen Yake Productions, where he worked on several music videos & the feature film R.I.O.T. Upon returning home, he secured his first television job as the Program Director of WKTV in Grand Rapids, MI, where he scheduled all programming for the station, and also worked on numerous TV programs & wrote, directed, produced, shot, lit, and edited his own programs and commercials for the station. In 2000, he became the Production Manager of WINM, a TCT Network television station based in Ohio, where he created TV programs and commercials that aired locally, nationally, and internationally in 170 nations on the global TV network.
In 2002, Johnson wrote, directed, produced, shot, lit, and edited his first feature film, DREAMER: THE MOVIE, which he then marketed & self-distributed into theaters. On New Year’s Eve of 2004, his first movie sold out the enormous Ionia Theatre in Ionia, MI, making it the largest paid movie audience in the theatre’s 70+ year history, with over 600 tickets sold to the premiere.
In 2008, Johnson wrote, directed, produced, and edited his second feature film, HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS, which he then marketed & self-distributed into theaters as well. Multiple theaters had SOLD OUT shows for days in a row, and at the NCG Cinema in Auburn, IN, HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS sold more tickets than AVATAR, the highest-grossing film in the world at the time, which opened on the same weekend. (Although this statistic speaks more to his marketing capabilities & local fanbase than the quality of his film in comparison to AVATAR).
In 2015, Johnson wrote, directed, produced, and edited THY NEIGHBOR, his most highly acclaimed film, which went on to win over 60 awards from film festivals in 18 countries, including a NATAS LGL Emmy® nomination for Best Director for the trailer.
In 2021, Johnson wrote, directed, and produced PULLED FROM DARKNESS, a gritty faith-based thriller, inspired by the true story of a woman who was sold into trafficking after her husband lost her in a card game. The script has already won four Best Screenplay awards, including Queen Palms International Film Festival (Palm Springs, CA), New York Movie Awards (New York, NY), Content2020 Film Festival & Media Summit (Dallas, TX), and the International Christian Film & Music Festival (Orlando, FL), the largest Christian film festival in the world, and regarded as the “Oscars” of the faith-based industry.
He has served as a Judge or Panelist in various talent competitions & film/television festivals, most notably the ICVM Crown Awards, and the Emmys®.
